Way of The Seekers — Page 42
42 THE wanted to answer experimentally. Our grandmother who was an amused spectator and was standing nearby, poohpoohed the whole idea. She thought animals could not be influenced. She said: Here is a sparrow. Catch it if you can. I took her at her word. As I gazed into the eyes of the sparrow, I went close to her. She did not move. But when I proceeded to catch her, my hand intervened between her eyes and mine. This broke the spell and she flew out of my hand. One traveler writes. I saw a squirrel running mad. Round and round she went gravitating to the same spot from which she had started. when I went near the spot I saw a snake pro- truding out his neck. The two were eventually very close to each other. The snake was about to make a morsel of her. I too went closer. The snake was still intent on eating her up. I hit the snake and scared it away. It is obvious, the squirrel was aware of the presence of the snake and wanted him to run away, before she did. Another traveler writes: In an African jungle I saw a bird fluttering for life. I looked closer and saw a snake looking in- tently into the eyes of the bird. I killed the snake but later I found the bird too had died, possibly out of the fear of being caught. In England they performed another kind of experiment. Two insects of the same species were placed apart at a dis- tance of five miles from each other. In course of time, they both found each other. Something intangible must have exerted its pull to join them together. An American biologist built an ant-house and sealed it carefully from the outside. After a while, whole colonies of ants were found sticking to the outside of a wall of the ant-house. On closer examination, it was discovered that the ants were sticking on the outside of the wall exactly on the spot where another colony of ants had collected inside. The experiment was repeated in another house, with the same result.